With how often I've heard people say that social mobility is a myth, I'm curious if there were any periods in history where poor people striking it rich and wealthy people becoming poor was a common occurrence.

>>6625862World war II was a period of high social mobility, especially in Germany. Rich jews were killed & robbed, gov used a plan economic. Basically, every war is a social mobility in both directions.

>>6625918That's true, although anyone with half a braincell (and the benefit of modern hindsight) would know that you would be far better off if you to set up a shop at the gold sights and sell the prospector's goods at outrageously marked up prices than if tried to strike it rich looking for gold yourself.

>>6625910Complete nonsense. Most of the families who are rich today have also been rich in the 19th century. Singular examples of people having become rich on their own exist - and they have also existed in the past - but they are still not "common".

>>6625862It’s difficult to say how much social mobility there is at any time given how the vast majority of people never even try to move their way up the social hierarchy. That being said, it is reasonable to assume that we in the modern age have more mobility than people in feudal Europe had.

>>6625862It's not a myth in the sense that it can't or doesn't happen, if at a low rate (as determined by the structural properties of capitalism and the historic situation of production).It is a myth in the sense of its position within bourgeois ideology, as justification of the stratification (holding a position is by itself the evidence one deserves it, tautologically), domination and exploitation of capitalism.As for your question, an extreme example would have been the privatisation wave during the 90s, and potentially the 2nd part of the 20th century, with a massive expansion of white collar jobs.

>>6625862Literally fucking now.I'm in CS major, and many of my friends with high grades are going to earn a fuck ton of money coding shit nobody knows how to.Also, 70% of rich families lose their wealth on the next generation.>http://money.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/

You should all read Gregory Clark's "The Son Also Rises". In it he demonstrates that social mobility is mostly a myth and has not substantially changed since Feudal England. Studies which claim high rates of social mobility usually only examine two or three generations, thus obscuring long-term trends.